We’ve written extensively here in the manosphere about the falsehood that is the “have it all” meme and the very real limitations women face that seem so often willfully obscured by feminists. The biological clock is arguably the most prominent of those limitations. The restriction it places on female fertility combined with the general desire that the vast majority of women have to become mothers at some point in their lives makes for a powerful force.
Halle Berry’s recent pregnancy has generated a lot of discussion both in the manosphere and out. Some have gone as far as to mark it a crucial step forward for the “have it all” crowd, a sign that career women will soon be able to delay childbirth indefinitely without penalty. Halle Berry, they say, will become a model for women who wish to prolong their ride on the career track or the “Sex and the City” casual dating carousel for as long as possible.
These fears are exaggerated, and I will explain why.
1. Halle Berry’s pregnancy was, in all likelihood, extremely expensive.
IVF is pricy, even after over three decades of time for the medical community to perfect it. In the USA, costs for a single cycle of IVF can top $13,000. When you consider the fact that most couples undergoing IVF will require multiple cycles, you can start to see how astronomical these costs can get. The average woman simply will not be able to afford to follow in Halle Berry’s footsteps.
A pregnancy like Berry’s was likely made even more expensive by the following realities:
What are my odds of getting pregnant at 46 naturally?
Not good, said Klein. “Natural pregnancies—when a woman is trying to get pregnant with her own egg—do occur in women in their mid 40s, but it would be nearly miraculous,” he said. Even in women using the assistance of IVF (in vitro fertilization), there has never been a clearly documented case of a baby being born from an IVF pregnancy in a woman older than age 45 using her own eggs.
Klein estimated that the chance of having a baby at age 46 without intervention is probably about 0.01 percent or less.
In short, there is about a 99% chance that Halle Berry not only had to undergo multiple treatments for IVF, but then also had to pay for donor eggs. The acquisition and maintenance of said eggs is not cheap, and certainly far out of reach for the ordinary woman.
2. Subsidization for these high costs is limited, and will probably remain so.
Israel is one of the only nations on Earth that makes IVF somewhat affordable for the non-celebrity woman. In the USA, most states do not mandate health insurance coverage for IVF and those that do often attach significant limitations to the assistance (e.g., covering just a fraction of the cost and restricting the number of cycles and embryos involved).
These realities have kept IVF pricy even in nations with a much more liberal attitude to government subsidization of healthcare than the USA.
Political realities make further subsidization a very uncertain proposition. Western nations are aging, and with that reality comes an abundance of medical issues. When placed next to heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, infertility stands out as an issue considered by most to be less than essential to the continuance of life, a more casual lifestyle problem of sorts. Though fertility issues can result in some emotional distress, they don’t carry the same danger or urgency posed by the likes of breast cancer, alzheimers, and many other ailments. This distinction has played a large role in keeping fertility treatments from getting the amount of government subsidization that other medical concerns receive, and I suspect it will continue to do so in the future.
This distinction is further enhanced by the perception many have of IVF users as women who “frittered away” their best years and now seek to have the taxpayer cover the cost of their indecisiveness and poor judgment. Though not all users of fertility treatment fit this bill (many have genuine fertility problems), the fact that many do will keep taxpayers and politicians wary of subsidization.
People are not interested in paying for consequences of somebody else’s “Sex and the City” fantasy carousel ride. Male opposition to this is obvious, but female opposition is likely to be strong as well. Keep in mind that those likely to be the most vocal about fertility treatment subsidization and most likely to take advantage of it are the same women served most directly by modern feminism: highly educated, affluent, and (usually) white women. Women who do not fit into some or any of these categories have plenty of reason to be suspicious of any plan seeking to use their tax money to subsidize those who do.
Combine these political realities with the high costs associated with the coverage of fertility treatment and the economic concerns facing the advanced Western nations most likely to consider providing it and you have a rather bleak picture of the future for fertility subsidization.
3. IVF is not foolproof.
IVF is challenging process without large guarantees of success, and those guarantees decline rapidly with age:
Because of the emotional, physical, and financial toll exacted by IVF, it is preferable that a couple undertake the process with the mindset that they will be in it for more than one attempt. If a couple can only afford one treatment cycle, IVF may not be the right course of action.
Recall that on average, with conventional IVF, there is only about one chance in three that it will result in a live birth, and there is a tremendous letdown if it fails. It is thus unreasonable to undergo IVF with the attitude that “if it doesn’t work the first time, we’re giving up.” In vitro fertilization is a gamble even in the best of circumstances.
Statistically speaking, a woman under 40 years of age, using her own eggs, having selected a good IVF program is likely to have a better than 70% chance of having a baby within three completed attempts – provided that she has adequate ovarian reserve, (the ability to producing several follicles/eggs in response to gonadotropin stimulation), has a fertile male partner (or sperm donor sperm) with access to motile sperm, and has a normal and receptive uterus capable of developing an “adequate” uterine lining. Women of 39-43 years of age who meet the same criteria, will likely have about half that chance (35%- 40%).
As mentioned earlier, multiple cycles are to be expected for IVF treatment. That means that even in nations where IVF costs are lower than they are in the USA ($3000-4000 in some parts of Northwestern Europe), a couple could still expect to fork out more than $10,000 for a pregnancy after three or more cycles of treatment. That is more than even many solid upper-middle class couples can reliably fork out.
These realities only get more dire with age. For a 35-year-old woman, three cycles could provide a 70% chance of a baby. Just four years later, those chances are cut in half. A woman at Halle Berry’s age almost certainly has to give up on the idea of using her own eggs and, by extension, having her own biological child.
Halle Berry’s pregnancy is not a sign of a future godsend for the carousel riders and wannabe Carrie Bradshaws among us. Such a godsend does not exist and probably never will. Berry is merely another in a line of expensive exceptions to the rule. Any woman looking to her experience as a reason to hold fertility treatments up as an insurance policy for her carousel ride will have to contend with exorbitant costs, relatively low success rates, and still limited time. Those who dislike these realities will not be able to count on change.
Read Next: When Female Ambition Clashes With Reality
It’s only a matter of time until no-deductible IVF insurance coverage is mandated by the government. The lack of coverage will be declared an infringement of women’s and gays basic rights. Women aren’t going to break ranks over this (if they consider cost at all, they’ll demand the tab be picked up by someone else), and men won’t stand up to women.
It’s hard to argue with the core point of this argument: that the authoritarianism inherent in feminism will lead to mandated gov’t subsidization of IVF–and anything else women want. In general, it isn’t wise to bet against this.
But there are some caveats. There are many countries that already have universal healthcare and IVF is not covered. There are many reasons for this–not least that there aren’t too many women who would want their tax dollars going toward IVF for other women. Additionally, the insurance and physicians lobbies are very powerful special interest groups in a gov’t that is for-sale through-and-through. This could greatly complicate matters–as it has for all efforts to advance universal healthcare for decades now.
Sure, the day may come when the gov’t is subsidizing IVF but by then women will, in all likelihood, be paying a far greater percentage of tax revenues than they are today. At that point, they will, to an ample degree, be paying for it themselves and if that’s what they want, then let them pay.
For men, the answer will be what it always has been: go your own way–whatever that may be. Don’t fuck/marry/procreate with older women. Leave them to their own devices. Do what it is your best interests, above all. Go your own way.
We have universal healthcare in Germany and IVF is covered, at least to a certain extent. There are requirements you have to fullfill. You have to be married, you have to pay 50 % of the costs and only the sperm of the respective husband can be used and your insurance has the ability to decline your application. They only pay if the woman is between 25 and 40 and the man between 25 and 50 years old.
In light of the facts that the fertility rate of both sexes is steadily declining in Germany, 1 out of 7 couples need fertility treatment, i personally think that this is a fair solution.
However, a pregnant woman over the age of 40 is somewhat unnatural…
I can actually see this happening. Sweden will be the first.
Men will stand up. Think A Voice For Men. Think MGTOW.
You inspired me to create this meme:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=128393354026706&set=a.127487887450586.1073741831.127234504142591&type=1&theater
Every time I see a pregnant woman, I feel an uncomfortably cold sweat… I mean, rationally I know it’s not my problem, but part of my brain says “what if… ?”
Pregnancy is a horrible thing for the modern man.
It won’t be long before Obamacare forces us to provide IVF to all the wimminz who decide to have a child in their later years.
Is there anything more unnatural than a mid 40 year old woman with a baby bump?
That’s disgusting
Wait until you see the stretch marks on a 40 something where their old skin is not going to spring back into shape like a young girl. Now that’s disgusting!
Tell that my youngest daughter grasshopper. Much to learn you still have boy. Lets talk again in 20 years when you have grown up.
prego women are gross… im glad to be a man and never have to endure something living inside of me for 9 months
You can still get intestinal worms 😉
It’s the same reason that men find fat females gross. Fat females remind them of pregnant females.
actually there are billions, maybe trillions of microbes living inside your intestinal tract.
And if the economic and social detachment of men continues, it will be women themselves footing the tax bill for any subsidies. I say let’s not only have a marriage strike, let’s have an everything strike.
They are so sure they are superior, let’s hand them the world, and watch them try to run it.
eventually one of two things will happen :
a.) the men will get fed up and create a massive war, to subconsciously punish the women.
b.) the women will wrestle total control and in a moment of bad hair day, combined with PMS and cat fight with their BFF, will let off all the nukes.
Also, and often omitted from IVF discussions, is the fact that birth defects are much higher with IVF pregnancies;
“They found that birth defects were significantly increased for infants born after IVF, compared with naturally conceived infants (9.0 percent vs. 6.6 percent), even after controlling for maternal factors. Specifically, IVF infants had greater rates of malformations of the eye (0.3 percent vs. 0.2 percent), heart (5.0 percent vs. 3.0 percent) and genitourinary system (1.5 percent vs. 1.0 percent).
Overall, IVF infants’ odds of having birth defects were 1.25 times greater than those of naturally conceived infants with similar maternal characteristics.”
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/in-vitro-fertilization-ivf-linked-239713.aspx
This was my first thought too.
Even among natural pregnancies the odds of genetic defects increase (seemingly) exponentially with age. 1 in 1200 at 25, 1 in 1000 at 30, 1 in 400 at 35, etc. The last one is a worryingly low.
Trying to be a mother over the age of 30 is selfish. You’re not gambling with your life, your gambling with your child’s life. Your child’s future. And by choice, because you wanted it all. That makes it selfish.
I also suspect the increase in asthma and other health problems is probably related to the increasing average age of mothers. It’s certainly not helping.
It’s been said here before, never date women over 30. If you want to be a father, you want your child to have the best opportunities. Starting your child off with a 1 in 400 chance of Down’s is not in your child’s interest. Or your’s.
Don’t mind science, it blinds the feminists.
Faced with facts, they’ll resort to denial and spin to suit their social beliefs.
The fact that Western women believe this absurd claim that they are as fertile at 40 as they are at 20 exposes how completely the media controls their thoughts.
If a TV show told men that they reach their “sexual peak” at 45….men would roll their eyes and flip the channel. Possessed women, though, hear these lies about their own sex drive and fertility and they fist pump and go, “Yeah! Grrrl power!”
Flash-forward a few years: Now they’re a 45 year old, childless, Sahara Snatch, dishing out tens of thousands of dollars to an IVF doctor in futile hopes of being able to have some OTHER woman’s biological child.
American culture cannot be salvaged. It is dead. I believe in MGTOW.
At 45 I was just as potent as at 20 but you’re right, at some point you are going downhill. I was just lucky genetically to even look 20+years younger than my actual age. But many men can look and feel pretty healthy certainly in their 40’s and even 50’s and 60’s if they took better care of themselves.
The donor egg thing makes it completely nuts. The kid is still not yours. Why not just adopt?
I work in the U.S. healthcare industry. The highest paid doctor in the United States is an IVF specialist in Manhattan. He makes close to $10m/year. Right now anybody receiving IVF pays for it out-of-pocket and all the IVF docs LOVE it (lots more money, just like plastic surgeons). Feminists will push for it, but I have my doubts as to whether the U.S. government will ever be able to mandate its coverage.
Basicly you are right. However your numbers seem WAAAAY off.
My best friend was born by a mother past 40. My second best friend was born by a mother past 40.
My youngest daughter was born when my wife was ~42. We have 3 kids, the oldest beeing born at her age ~33.
None of the above cases had hormone treatment, even less IVF. We are talking about caucasian (white) families here and cases over the cause of the past ~50 years.
So with all due respect and my own disgust regarding feminism in this case the arguments are weak.
It is not so much a question of female age but instead of female HEALTH. Most important weight (BMI) and fitness. IF – and only IF – we assume that the average (american) female is gaining weight at 15 pounds/6 years over 20; only then these arguments make sense, and these numbers seems correct. But that does not have to be that way. It is possible to be female, mid 40 and have the same BMI you had with 18, the same seize for clothing and the same stamina.
If a wife does not, it is not a question of age but a question of will; of the lack of it.
IIRC, I believe the fertility stats show that a woman who has already given birth is able to get pregnant again right through to menopause quite easily. It’s the women seeking one trophy baby, trying to miraculously kickstart their atrophied reproductive system at 35, who are barren and sterile.
Yeah, I grew up in a Catholic community where women would have children all throughout their thirties and even around 40. But, obviously, this is far different than modern women (nowadays, virtually EVERY woman I know in her 30’s has had great difficulty conceiving).
A female who had kids when she was younger may be able to have one at 42 like my mother but for a first time pregnancy it is either risky or the female is already menopausal.
“It is not so much a question of female age but instead of female HEALTH.”
Totally false.
Remember, the plural of “anecdote” isn’t “data”.
Great article by McGinnis here. Really exposes the whole “man-behind-the-curtain” element (or should I say, “lady-behind-the-curtain”) that the feminist message has come to rely on. Women have been sold a parcel of goods, the benefits of which are illusory at best. It’s almost comical now how far people will go to maintain that illusion. You peel back the exterior and all you see is a bunch of money, privilege and propoganda far beyond the reach of the average woman. There’s nothing liberating about living in a fantasy world.
Jezebel crowd needs to be reading and pondering this…
I wouldn’t count on it. There are few things as offensive to the Jezebel crowd’s sensibilities as the real world and the consequences of living in it.
These dingbats think menopause is at 50. I’m not joking.
It’s just gross. Women want to bend the rules of biology, sociology and psychology to fit their infantile wants. Here’s the one thing a 47 year-old new mother won’t escape, the utter stretching out and destruction of her once hot body. She’s showing here age now. Just think of what pushing out a couple of rug rats will do to her.
Of course, she’ll probably correct those problems with enough plastic surgery to make the living Barbie Doll cringe.
Tick-toc, tick-toc BOOM goes the former babe.
She’s rich and will pay to get that body back.
I was a medical doctor and can tell you that the general public has a crazy idea about what plastic surgery can accomplish. Even the best surgeon does not know how a patient will heal, especially one in her 40’s. And I have never seen a normal looking female become beautiful as the result of surgery. All a surgeon can do is sometimes take away negative traits, like a big nose or something, and make an ugly person look more average or correct things, usually only partially, like birth defects or accident or burn victims etc
Fake tits? I can spot them 100% of the time even if they’re small.
Females who are good looking are that way due to inheritance.
you left out the most important fact : Halle Berry is one of the most highly paid actresses in the world and has been for a long time.
It’s in her best interests to keep herself in absolute tip top shape, she has not only the budget to do that, but a massive vested interest in her body health.
Her earning potential comes mainly from her looks, looks come not just from botox and surgery but also from maintaining good healthy habits.
She’s been doing that for a good two decades, and therefore 46 for her is like 36 for your average troll.
People look at these celebs and think their lives are all movie premiers and private jets, but the reality you never hear about is the tremendous hard work they have to do to keep themselves fit and healthy.
It’s a shame we don’t hear more about that, and less about their genitals.
Gwenth Paltrow to her credit, did have a try, but it’s hard to someone with a high six figure budget for health, diet and fitness to really relate to your average secretary.
I never found Berry attractive and now that she’s old, certainly not. Most of what you look like is determined genetically anyway. You can’t make yourself look younger no matter what you do with exercise or diet, but certain bad habits can make you look older.
Do you see Madonna? At her age she has to exercise all of the time to build muscle just to hold her flabby skin and body together. A young girl doesn’t need any exercise or diet(unless she’s genetically fat) because her body is naturally firm and her skin taut. Muscles would look disgusting on her.
i think you’re one of those guys that just likes to argue to hear the sound of his own voice.
obviously it’s not just genetics.
if madonna wasn’t in the public eye and wasn’t high networth and high income (plus addicted to the fame game), then she would look like anyone’s granny by now.
the point is that people who make a living from their looks, have a vested interest to remain healthy, not smoke, not eat junk and so forth. Thus they don’t represent a very good indicator of what Jane Public might be able to do with herself… regardless of the amount of money she spends.
Jane Public hasn’t spent the last two decades grooming and preening and dieting, with expert nutritionists and trainers and so forth.
Not genetics? lol The distribution of fat(and bone structure) on a female’s body is ALL genetic.This is why you find Playboy models of 115lbs with naturally big boobs and why fat girls many times have tiny boobs relative to their weight. Genetics is why if a man gains weight it’s on his stomach while an overweight female has it on her arse and thighs.Aside from genetics aging is next where you’ll see menopausal females getting that matronly look where the pelvic bones thicken and she doesn’t have that slim hipped girlish look anymore no matter how much dieting she does.
Madonna does look like a granny now.
Problem is, they don’t care about the biological clock. They care about their own wishes.
It’s a woman’s DUTY to her people and her nation to bear children at a replacement rate during their peak fertility, just as it is a man’s duty to be productive and die for his country if it advances national interests. If I could give birth at the same time, I would. Feminists and their ilk are basically stuck in the kindergarten view of the world, where identity conflict is “bad”, and their own enjoyment comes before anything pragmatic.
any man who would die for “advancement of national interests” in this age is a fuckwad.
It’s about time the useless government did one good thing, and required people to get a license to have children.
To get that license you’d have to have both the mother and father on the paper work and proof they have done short courses in sociology, psychology, child raising, healthcare for pregnant women and children.
Make it real tough with a written and oral exam.
And have a $25,000 deposit guarantee, to cover some of their kids needs until they reach 16.
No license, well… sorry……. no healthcare, no benefits, no education, no nothing….. cut off…. and if you’re caught pregnant without a license, instant abortion.
The world doesn’t need more womb turds, it needs regulating.
They tried eugenics. It didn’t work.
Worked just fine, they got scared is all.
dude you are fuckin trippin. you need to get your head out of your ass.
This is true, however men’s ‘fertility’ is best under the age 40 as well. Sure sperm can still be viable until old age, however, just like aged eggs, sperm belonging to older men produces tons of abnormalities and mental disorders in kids. Also two of grandmothers gave birth to healthy babies after the age of 45. They didn’t use protection because they thought it was impossible and bam, produced my mother. Also have a friend, married a women in her 40’s, and they had 3 children after she was 41 (natural). Its happens, although its definitely not easy to become pregnant after 40. less than 10% chance and yes women should be educated about it. Not many actually know the very low chance of becoming pregnant after 35. Note to men and women, best to have your babies under age 40.
This is true, however men’s ‘fertility’ is best under the age 40 as well.
This is not true. Of course, advanced age will effect motility but that age may be around 80. I can make a list of the many men that have had perfect children when they were 75-80
“This is true, however men’s ‘fertility’ is best under the age 40 as
well…sperm belonging to older men produces tons of abnormalities
and mental disorders in kids.”
This is a myth, there is no substantiation for it. The rate of disorders sourced by aged sperm is statistically significant, but still miniscule. Though risk increases significantly with parental age, it is never very large and it does not even begin to approach the rate of disorders caused by similarly advanced maternal age (ex: 1/10 chance of down syndrome at 49 for a mother).
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57575687/older-fathers-may-increase-autism-risk-for-grandkids/
“They found that men who had a daughter when they were 50 or older were 1.79
times more likely to have a grandchild with autism than a man who had a child
when he was 20 to 24 years old. Men who had a son at 50 or later were 1.67
times more likely to have a grandchild with autism…
…The overall risk is small, and the study was only observational, meaning it
did not prove that advanced age meant autistic grandchildren.
“Although there was a statistically
significant increase in the incidence of autism in families with older
grandparents, it must be remembered that autism was still extremely infrequent
even in families with the oldest grandparents,” Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief
of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen
Children’s Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park, said to HealthDay.”
All of this is even more accurate if you’re a healthy male (read: regular exercise, good diet, no smoking, no drinking, etc), a factor these studies regarding paternal age fail to account for. Men do not have anything approaching the level of risk held by women due to advanced age of parenthood.
I will be addressing this myth more specifically and extensively in my post next week.
It would really be affected by the age of the female that these men bred with not the fact that the men are 50.These 50yo men are breeding with females on the borderline of menopause not 20 year olds.
And btw, I told you the max age that any female has been able to breed naturally, it was a record 47 so there are no 49 yo females having kids naturally.
repeat after me : MOOOOOOOOOO
The oldest natural pregnancy, like a Guinness World record,where the female was knocked up in the normal way and delivered in the normal way is 47.That’s a record. The average age of menopause is 40 give or take a couple of years.
Remember Octomom? She had 8 embryos implanted because she knew that most of them would have to be aborted to get perhaps 1 kid and she was 32 at the time. It was only the result of a 1 in trillion chance that they all took and were born alive.
But there are already this in the ARMY, female “soldiers” get subsidize IVF, also the lesbian crowd is really behind this, take in consideration that this is going to beneficit the women that always have being exploiting tax payers, college educated white women
Not to be rude, but who cares?
Fuck the younger broads, and ‘fuck’ the older broads
Cock carousel riders, sluts and skanky women who wait till their 40’s for children like Berry don’t deserve pregnancy. Modern technology plays a devil’s advocate for these women.
And yet teens shouldn’t be having sex in the first place. Oh, liberalism and/ or secularism.